The present invention relates to a harvester for harvesting root vegetables such as carrot, radish and white radish from fields.
As a conventional harvester for root vegetables, there have been used a carrot harvester which has a digger blade, and a pair of endless belt conveyers provided at a rear portion of the digger blade for picking up the carrot from the field and conveying them to the rearward. Such a machine operates to dig up carrots from the field and discharges them on the field. Therefore, it is necessary to pick up the dug carrots from the field, and to cut a stalk from a root of the carrot. Accordingly, it takes much more time and labor. Furthermore, since the belt conveyers are integrally attached on a body of the harvester, it is difficult to adjust the position of the conveyer on a row of carrots.
Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open 60-125825 discloses a carrot harvester. In the harvester, the stalk of the carrot is engaged with a pair of endless belts to be picked up from the field and fed to a rear portion of the harvester. During the feeding, the stalk is cut from a root of the carrot by a cutter. The root is dropped on a corrugated belt conveyer and conveyed to a hopper. In the harvester, it is necessary to sort the root in the hopper in accordance with the quality of the root. Such a sorting operation requires much time and labor.